Sunday 4 September 2011 11.53 EDT
First published on Sunday 4 September 2011 11.53 EDT

Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase, Britain's Beijing Olympic champions, snatched a breathtaking victory from New Zealand's lightweight double on the final day of competition at the world championships.

The win delivered Britain's third Olympic-class gold medal of the championships.

"It was definitely good to get one over on the Kiwis," Hunter said. "This is our event and we showed them why."

Although the New Zealand team took one more Olympic-class medal than the British during the regatta, Hunter said: "I was fed up seeing the Kiwis row through some of the British boats in the finals. But I'm sure that this win will give the team motivation as they head towards the Olympics."

In the quarter-finals the Kiwis' pace seemed to break the British in the final 300m but Hunter had other ideas in the final. "We were quite happy to let the Kiwis dictate the speed of the first half of the race," the 33-year-old said.

The British pair began to pile on the pressure in the third quarter and, although their bows did not hit the front until the last 400m, Purchase said: "I saw that when we stepped on it with 750m to go, the Kiwis were getting a bit ragged and I knew then that we would have them." The margin of victory was 0.34sec.

Purchase, who has struggled to overcome a virus that kept him out for almost two months over the summer, added: "This season's been really difficult and that was a fantastic result."

The men's four saw off Greece and Australia and, though the win was expected, the way the British took the field apart in the middle 1,000m was outstanding. Their pace was almost three seconds quicker than their rivals and ensured they had a two‑second cushion in the last quarter.

Tom James, who already had a fours gold medal from Beijing, said: "This means an awful lot to me. It's my first world title." The 27-year-old Welshman said his crew's result had come against a challenging background of injuries and niggles: "Rick [Egington] has had a bad back all week and we've had problems getting comfortable in our boat."

It was not all good for Britain. The speed of New Zealand's unbeaten coxless pair – 0.4sec outside of the world record on Saturday – brought further heartache for the pair of Andy Hodge and Pete Reed. The team's two strongest rowers once more had to settle for silver. In 2012 they will probably form part of a new four. "I think that result leaves all of us in the four in the best position possible to prepare for the London Olympics," James said.

The British team won 10 medals out of the 14 Olympic-class events. But until Sunday New Zealand's achievements had kept the British in the shade.

Katherine Grainger, who took a double sculls gold medal together with Anna Watkins on Saturday, underlined just how important the results on Sunday were for the morale of Britain's Olympic rowers. "Because of those two gold medals the team will now leave Bled with a real feeling of optimism for the coming 11 months," said the 34‑year‑old Scot.